Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of social networking and more particularly to navigational pivot points for social networks.
Description of the Related Art
A social network refers to a social structure of nodes each associated with a different person or organization. The interconnections of each node reflect direct relationships between the respective people and organizations such that the directness of a relationship between two persons or organizations associated with respective nodes can be summarized by the path of interconnections between the respective nodes. In this way, any one individual in a social network can evaluate the number and quality of social relationships with others in the network, those relationships ranging from close familial bonds to casual acquaintances.
The advent of the global Internet has changed the way in which social networks can be viewed. Originally, a mere visual tool describing a social phenomenon, computerized social networks facilitate the recognition and expansion of social networks amongst interacting users across the globe. Whereas geographic boundaries previously limited the extent and quality of a given social network, the global Internet enables limitless expansion of the social network based upon a vast set of aware collaborators coupled by the fabric of computer communications.
Commercial computerized social networks have become wildly popular in recent years—especially amongst the younger demographic. Examples include the MySpace™ computer socialized network maintained by MySpace, Inc. of Los Angeles, Calif., LinkedIn™ computerized business network maintained by LinkedIn Corporation of Palo Alto, Calif., and the Facebook™ computerized social network maintained by Facebook of Palo Alto, Calif. Commercial computerized social networks represent social networking services connecting users according to different types of interests in an aggregated view—generally a Web site hosting user contributed content through imagery and commentary.
Commercial computerized social networks allow users to create individual profiles. Each profile can include social media including imagery such as photographs of the user and things relevant to the user. Each profile further can include textual materials such as lifestyle information, or general writings. Notably, users can establish networks of favorite “friends”. Favorite friends can be specified manually by a given user and often represent the individuals or organizations most favored by the given user. Each of the favorite friends can be presented in the Web site so as to allow linking to a corresponding profile for the favorite friend. In this way, an end user literally can navigate shared social media in the social network for a given user.
Generally, social networking users can view the recent actions of those in the user's social network. Those actions include status updates, profile changes, and the addition of new content. The recent activities for those in the social network of the user traditionally are provided only in the home page of the user. Other page views in the social network exclude recent activities. Similar, the recent activities of all users in a social network often can be viewed from the home page of the user. For shared media oriented social networks, the recent actions of all users irrespective of the social network of a given user manifests itself in the form of a “most popular” or “most often accessed” content list. In both cases, recent actions are provided from a specific page view. In the event that a user of the social network navigates elsewhere from the specific page, the opportunity to view recent actions will be lost. Users may also have difficulty finding access to the recent actions if they are presented in different ways on profile pages as contrasted with specific pages.